International Public Sector Accounting Standards （IPSAS） Implementation in the European Union （EU） Member States

The aim of this paper is to analyze the implementation level of International Public Sector Accounting Standards （IPSAS） in the member states of the European Union （EU）. After an introduction of the legislative framework in the EU and a review of the literature about the implementation of IPSAS in the EU member states, this paper classifies, on the basis of a survey, the states according to their formal implementation levels of IPSAS. It also analyzes the types of accounting （cash basis accounting, modified cash basis accotmting, accrual accounting, and modified accrual basis accounting） used by the states studied. The survey shows that there are important disparities among the member states, both for the application of IPSAS and for the type of accounting that is used. Furthermore, it appears that even if IPSAS is not legally adopted in most European member states, there is a tendency to use modern accounting systems based on accrual accounting close to IPSAS.

The Role of the Subjectivist Position in the Probabilization of Forensic Science

This paper is concerned with the contribution of forensic science to the legal process by helping reduce uncertainty.Although it is now widely accepted that uncertainty should be handled by probability because it is a safeguard against incoherent proceedings,there remain diverging and conflicting views on how probability ought to be interpreted.This is exemplified by the proposals in scientific literature that call for procedures of probability computation that are referred to as"objective,"suggesting that scientists ought to use them in their reporting to recipients of expert information.I find such proposals objectionable.They need to be viewed cautiously,essentially because ensuing probabilistic statements can be perceived as making forensic science prescriptive.A motivating example from the context of forensic DNA analysis will be chosen to illustrate this.As a main point,it shall be argued that such constraining suggestions can be avoided by interpreting probability as a measure of personal belief,that is,subjective probability.Invoking references to foundational literature from mathematical statistics and philosophy of science,the discussion will explore the consequences of this interdisciplinary viewpoint for the practice of forensic expert reporting.It will be emphasized that-as an operational interpretation of probability_the subjectivist perspective enables forensic science to add value to the legal process,in particular by avoiding inferential impasses to which other interpretations of probability may lead.Moreover,understanding probability from a subjective perspective can encourage participants in the legal process to take on more responsibility in matters regarding the coherent handling of uncertainty.This would assure more balanced interactions at the interface between science and the law.This,in turn,provides support for ongoing developments that can be called the"probabilization"of forensic science.

The Case in the Vase： What Can a Ming Novel Tell Us about Traditional Chinese Legal Culture？

The more than thirty legal disputes and cases mentioned in The Plum in the Golden Vase （Jinpingmei） make this late Ming novel an invaluable source for the study of law and legal culture in premodern China. This lecture illustrates that the cases in the novel describe in considerable detail each of the formal steps in the Ming process of legal adjudication. But the work also conveys the message that despite the formal process, the legal system does not deliver justice. However, an alternative system of justice that is mostly implicit in the text, the justice of a disinterested and moral Heaven, ultimately prevails. Finally, the contemporary implications of this traditional understanding of law and justice are explored.

Acquisition of hyponymy relations for agricultural terms from a Japanese statutory corpus

This paper,which aims to increment the vocabulary of an existing thesaurus using hyponymy relations,focuses on an agricultural thesaurus called AGROVOC.Our main goal is to acquire AGROVOC-qualified candidates from the hyponymy relations of legal texts and tables.We propose a pattern-based approach to hyponymy relation acquisition.Our experimental result showed that 222 and 868 candidates are extracted from statutory sentences with 67.1%precision and tables with 37.0%precision,respectively.